


Kissing, like anything else one wishes to do well, should be practiced

by Oparu



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Drabbles, F/F, Kisses, Mostly Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-12 11:16:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7100911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oparu/pseuds/Oparu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Variety of Dragon Queen drabbles, varying lengths and themes</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. drunk kiss

**Author's Note:**

> DQ I was prompted for on tumblr, which were great fun. Mostly kisses, some are just sweet and I needed a place to post them.

Regina runs her hands through her hair, her fingers clumsy and teasing, because that could be Mal’s hands in her hair. She’d welcome that contact, because she keeps watching Mal’s fingers and eyeing her lips. It’s not the alcohol, Mal knows Regina and Regina is controlled, this is desire, uncomplicated by dating or any idea of their relationship.

They don’t have one, and yet, Regina’s hand on her thigh is so tempting, trusting; wanting.

She was dead, at least as dead as she’s ever been, and Regina, this Regina unencumbered with revenge and pain, is life, wild and complicated.

And not.

Mal leans closer, remembering the heat of Regina’s mouth against hers. She wouldn’t blame the drink for her own unwillingness to stop, but she was dead. Perhaps this life is a more human one.

More delicate, less isolated, because there’s no Forbidden Fortress to retreat to. They all live in this little town, where Regina is mayor. Ruling without misery, without death and this makes her taste like hope. Like life, like the young Regina who’d had so much promise and made her path such a dark one.

Their mouths meet, tasting, then sliding together because they know this. Kissing is familiar, wonderful and brave, because she’s not letting Regina in to her heart. Regina never left.


	2. nap kiss

Regina blinks slowly, stretching her arms. The fog fades slowly from her head, clinging to her. 

“You fell asleep,” Mal says, kissing her forehead. “Come to bed.” 

“I-” Regina starts, staring at her work.”I should finish.”  The papers are spread all over the coffee table in front of her, and Mal helps her set them into a pile. 

She reaches for the back of Regina’s neck, stroking her down her back. “You can finish in the morning. It’ll still be here.” She nuzzles her, then kisses her cheek. “Come to bed.”

Regina smirks, looking at Mal’s lips. “You’re not thinking about my work.”

“No,” Mal answers, and she touches Regina’s chin. “Come to bed.” She meets her mouth, sharing the heat of her lips. “It’ll be better than work.” 

 


	3. frightened kiss

“You’re all right, you’re all right,” Regina repeats. She catches Mal’s flailing arms and then pulls her in towards her chest. The nightmares come at least once a week, worse now that the baby is more than a distraction. She’s more present now and Mal worries more about losing her. Sometimes it’s Lily, sometimes it’s this child, unknown as she is. 

Regina kisses her forehead, holding her close. “It’s not real, it’s not happening.” 

Mal doesn’t wake right away, never does, but she softens. She thrashes less, her breathing slows, and finally, her eyes meet Regina’s.

“You’re safe.”

“Regina–” Her voice catches, her throat almost too tight for speech. 

“You’re safe,” Regina assures her again, kissing her cheeks, her forehead. “No one’s going to hurt you.” That will be true this time. No one will take this baby, she can promise that. 

Mal rests her head on Regina’s chest, listening to her heart. Regina’s half-convinced that she’s asleep again when Mal sits up and kisses her, sleepy but sweet.  “Thank you.”

“I love you,” Regina reminds her. 

Mal lies over her, studying her face in the dark. “You do,” she murmurs. “I love you too.” 


	4. gift kiss

“I do not see the point of dragging me down to your hospital,” Mal protests, again. “I am certain. I know myself.”

Regina sighs, turning the car keys in her hands. Mal will probably just want to ‘port there, to hell with driving. “It’s a precaution.”

“Why?” Mal asks, still sitting on the sofa. “Being pregnant is not the difficult part. No one can take the baby now. She’s safe.”

Still holding the keys, Regina crosses the living room and sits beside her. “How do you know this baby is a girl?”

Mal tilts her head, getting the confused look. “Lily was.”

Regina has to smile, because that logic makes no sense to her. “Which means?”

“That unlike a pair of dragons, you and I can only have daughters.” Mal pulls her legs up, curling into herself.

Regina reaches for her cheek and strokes it. “Because we had one?”

“Yes.”

That is not human logic, or any logic Regina can think of. “That doesn’t make any sense. How do you know this baby isn’t a boy?”

“I do.” Mal leans back, and finally smiles. “You don’t even trust this Fish doctor.”

“Whale.”

“You hate him.”

“I don’t hate–”

“Why do you want me to see him?”

Regina sets down her keys on the coffee table. “I’m worried.”

Mal nods. “You’re always worried.”

“This time is different from Lily, you said it yourself.”

Mal leans forward and kisses her. Her lips brush Regina’s, warm and soft. “Different isn’t bad.”

“I know, I just–”

“Worry.” Mal smiles and kisses her again, lingering for a moment. She takes her hand, holding it close to her chest. “I’m fine. This baby is a gift.”

Regina’s not sure she would be as gracious if one night in her vault had ended up the other way. “All right, all right. But he’d let you see the baby, that might be nice.”

Mal wrinkles her nose at the thought. “ there’s not much to see now. You can’t even tell she’s there.”

“You can see a little.”

Mal raises her eyebrows. “Oh?”

Regina hasn’t seen an ultrasound, though she’s looked at them online. She has a vague idea and that’s probably not what Mal wants to hear. Maybe it wouldn’t even work well on a dragon. Maybe half-dragon babies don’t develop the same way. She can think of a hundred maybes and that brings her back around. Whale has the cursed knowledge of a competent small town doctor and his own misspent medical research which isn’t much, but it’s something.

“Here,” Mal offers, dragging their entwined hands down to her belly. There is a change there, a slight roundness that’s more apparent when she wears anything tight. She shuts her eyes, concentrating on something and light coalesces in front of them, a little ball of purple and silver, twisting back in on itself. Pulsing somehow.

Mal opens her eyes again and beams, proud of this conjuring. “That’s her.”

“What?”

“Her magic, ours, in a way. That’s how it manifests.” Mal cuddles closer and kisses her cheek. “She’s fine.”

Of the hundred responses Regina has, that she’s worried more about Mal then the baby, that they can’t possibly know this child is a girl, that this can’t be happening to them again: all she can do is kiss Mal’s forehead, because she’s right. This is a gift.

 


	5. a promise kiss

“It’ll be fine,” Regina promises, again. 

Mal lingers in the doorway, studying the car in the driveway with a skeptical look. She shuts her eyes, takes a breath, and follows Regina to the car. She gets in and buckles up, her hands folded in her lap. 

“The town’s really a nice place.”

“You made it with a curse,” Mal reminds her. She smiles finally, and Regina starts the car. 

Before she puts it in gear, Regina reaches across and squeezes Mal’s hand. “If you hate it, we’ll leave. I promise. Chances are something bad will happen and we’ll have to go fight a Chernobog or something. No one can have a party at Granny’s without something going wrong.”

Mal leans back, but she returns the squeeze of Regina’s fingers. “I can’t wish for a catastrophe to get out of socializing.” 

Leaning across, Regina kisses her, grateful for her willingness to do this, to be part of the town. “I do, sometimes.”

That makes Mal chuckle, and she lifts Regina’s chin to kiss her again, this time slower, teasing. “Maybe we just need to bribe ourselves with something good.”

“Like what?”

Mal shifts in the seat of the Mercedes and smirks. “Emma taught me how to buy lingerie off the internet.”

Regina chuckles and raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

“I was going to ask Lily and Emma volunteered, quite enthusiastically, really.” Mal leans close to Regina and finishes in a whisper. “And I know how much you enjoy purple.” 


	6. surprise kiss

“What are you–” Mal protests, but Regina stops her, kissing her with all the emotion she’s been holding onto so desperately. They’re supposed to be friends, not rushing this. Thinking their relationship through rather than rushing into anything but she can’t wait any longer. 

She wants her, wants them, wants everything that kissing Mal promises. 

Mal kisses her back, holding her close, and none of her thoughts matter, because her mouth, her lips, and the hand on her thigh mean so much more than stupid things like reason and sense. 

“Regina?”

“Maleficent?” she answers with a question. 

That makes Mal smirk. 

“Shut up and kiss me.” 

 


	7. learning something new

Regina turns in the passenger seat and goes over the levers and dials again. Then she sits back, her white knuckles hidden beneath her black gloves. 

“I know moving your feet and your hands at the same time seems a little strange,” she starts, smiling as if that makes it all easier. “Surely it’s not that different from flying?”

Bless her foolish heart for thinking controlling this contraption is anything like flying. Perhaps someday she’ll finally agree to learn the shape-changing spell and they can reverse the lesson. 

“It’s very different,” Maleficent says, stroking the gear shift. “But since it means so means so much to you.” She pushes down the left lever with her foot, the clutch (which is an odd term, as no eggs are involved), then she shoves down the gas and turns the key. 

The poor Mercedes makes a shrieking sound like a dying goat and bucks back and forth before it dies. 

Regina shuts her eyes and shakes her head. “Not quite. Try again.”

“Again?” Mal lets go of the key. “Surely the beast has suffered enough.”

“I have a year before I’ll have Henry here and I’d rather work out all my jitters with you, thank you,” she answers with a sigh. “If I snap at you, you’ll recover.”

“You don’t think my fragile ego is wrapped up in my ability to control this thing?”

Regina really smiles now, bright and amused. “Somehow I doubt it.” 

“What about my sense of camaraderie with the Mercedes?” 

“Just try again.” 


	8. tending an injury

She hisses, breath catching in her teeth. Pain rushes through her, somehow hot and cold, and she didn’t think something as minor as an ankle could hurt so. She’s twisted one before, when Emma rescued her from Rumple’s explosion, but it wasn’t like this, this just fucking hurts. 

“Stop,” Maleficent says, offering her both hands before she falls. “Sit.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s broken.”

“It is not.”

Mal strokes her cheek, then brushes tears from her eyes. “You can’t put any weight on it, that means it’s broken. Trust me.” 

Her left hand remains on Regina’s cheek, warm and gentle, but her right moves down her leg, towards her ankle and she wants to pull it away, to refuse to let her touch it but even moving her knee sends a fresh wash of pain over her.

“Don’t move, you’ll make it worse.”

“I don’t see how I could-” and her voice stops in a strangled gasp. 

Pain radiates, hot-cold, white and grey in the fringes of her vision and  then something else is there. Fire, not a roaring one, more like a candle flame, sneaks into her senses. It’s a distraction at first, a fragile light against the consuming darkness of pain and unconsciousness, but it’s steady. 

“Stay with me.” 

“I tripped,” Regina mutters. “How could I have done that much damage?”

“The ground’s soft,” Mal says, and the fire grows in Regina’s mind, pushing the pain back. She’s doing that, magic’s flowing between them. “Sometimes we’re just unlucky.”

“Easy for you to say.”

Mal laughs and the warmth of her starts to make it easier to breathe. “Have I ever told you how many bones I’ve broken trying to fly? Or the bruises I sustained learning to walk on two legs in this form? Human bodies are clumsy things.”

“Can you heal it?”

“A broken ankle?” Mal’s hand floats lower, and the heat is enough to make the cold sweat on the back of Regina’s neck a little less frigid. “I don’t know. Bone’s easy enough, but muscles, blood vessels.”

She grabs her shoulders, needing something, someone to hang on to. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Mal looks up, eyes full of fire. “I don’t know if I can heal it yet.”

“That’s not–” Regina halts. “Just, thank you.”

“If I can’t heal it, I’ll bring you back. Emma should be able to mend it.”

“It doesn’t hurt as much.”

“That doesn’t mean you should stand up,” Mal warns. “Humans are difficult. Healing a dragon would be much easier.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” 

Mal strokes her cheek. “Or just don’t run through the woods at night.”

“I wasn’t-” Regina stops, then smiles, letting herself sink into the warmth of Mal’s magic, of her touch. “I wasn’t running.”

“That’s not what Henry said.”

“Traitor.” She winces, because even through the pleasant haze, the pain’s still there, throbbing. 

“Help me,” Mal says, reaching for her hand. “You have light magic, you heal. I have more than enough power, help me guide it.”

“I can’t–”

“I don’t know how to heal this, and you do.”

“I’ve only read about it-”

“Look at me,” Mal orders, her voice soft. “If you help me you can walk home, if you don’t, I’ll carry you.” 

Regina looks into her eyes, losing herself there like staring into a bonfire. “All right.” 


End file.
